Chemical Process Control: CPC 6

Meeting Summary and Evaluation

The sixth International Chemical Process Control meeting (CPC 6) was held January 7-12, 2001 at the Westward Look Resort in Tucson, Arizona. The uniqueness of the CPC meeting series in the process control community is illustrated by the following features: the meetings are held at five year intervals, all talks are invited and are organized in a single track so the entire audience can attend each presentation, and most importantly, a significant fraction of the audience, usually more than half, is comprised of leaders from the chemical process industries.

The overall goal of the CPC conference series is to evaluate the current progress in this field and identify the new intellectual challenges and frontiers that may have fundamental impact on future industrial practice.

At CPC 6, of the 135 registered attendees, about 65 were from the chemical process industries, and the rest were from universities and federal agencies.

Program

The program consisted of the following technical sessions and speakers:

Sunday evening

Monday morning

Monday evening

Tuesday morning

Tuesday evening

Wednesday morning

Wednesday afternoon

Wednesday evening

Thursday morning

Thursday afternoon

Thursday evening

Friday morning

Post meeting questionnaire analysis (75 responses)

Did the meeting meet your expectations?

Yes. Dominant answer. Some equivocated by saying mostly. Complaint was not enough focus on critical evaluation of current status and future trends. Also, quality varied widely between speakers and sessions. meeting format is great, afternoons off for leisure or private discussion.

No's. Ten of them. Some negative remarks about academics giving incomprehensible talks. Failed to bring industry and universities together. Paper content was too similar to regular conferences. Some no's felt we should still hold CPC 7, the meeting is important.

What motivated you to attend?

The main reasons: best place to have discussion, academic/industrial participation, vendor evaluation, update on where the field is heading, attended past CPCs, a MUST meeting, best forum, see if theory exists for currently faced problems (answer was no), broad scope, networking,

Was it worth your time/money?

Yes. Dominant answer. Some equivocation on price of hotel. Discussion alone justified attendance. Hospitalities a must. Meal plan was too expensive.

Were the facilities adequate?

Yes. Dominant answer. Many compliments to Robin Craven. A few complaints about lecture room, size of provided note pads, need more business friendly.

Suggestions for future content and format.

More overview, less individual research focus
  • make sure presenters understand goals, hold them accountable.
  • session organizers need to work more closely with speakers
  • go even farther afield for topics, important to maintain breadth, in spite of communication problems
  • more integration of theory and implementation
  • more integration between speakers in session
  • best paper award to encourage people to meet the conference goals
  • why experienced presenters need to be told 60+ slides crammed with tables and equations is inappropriate is beyond me, but they need to be reminded
  • more strategic vision
More discussion
  • long discussion at end of session worked better than short discussion after each paper
  • more discussion to show how the theory is relevant
  • more general audience discussion, less panel discussion
  • more assigned discussants that can give other perspectives on the talk; more debate format
  • avoid discussants giving mini-talks
Presentations need improvement
  • it appeared some presenters did not understand the purpose of the meeting.
  • quality of presentation was too variable, especially for supposed professionals
  • some sessions were inaccessible, even if timely, e.g. life sciences
  • slides were unreadable
More industrial focus
  • more industrial reviewers, no equations in talks
  • more industrial talks, fewer vendor talks
  • Exxon, Eastman, DuPont are not representative; too advanced, elitist. What about the many companies that don't have people resources. Make control theory relevant to these other companies.
  • academics cannot present their research well
  • invite only speakers who understand practice
  • get biotech and pharmaceutical industrial participants
  • paper from academia, discussant from industry and vice-versa
Potential topics for next CPC meeting
  • state estimation
  • interaction of design and control
  • batch control
  • optimization
  • more posters
  • microelectronics
  • tutorials
  • future needs brainstorm/break-out session
  • education
  • ways to reduce complexity of organisms/systems
  • emerging communication technologies
  • run-to-run control
  • modeling requirements
  • fault detection
  • data analysis, large data sets
  • technology transfer, university to commercialization
  • control theory -- should be a tradition
  • formally organize the break-out sessions
Formatting and detailed issues
  • have a separate, pull out schedule
  • try to avoid power-point glitches
  • abstracts before meeting
  • sessions need co-chairs
  • too many organizers were speakers (bad form)
  • shorten evening session, too hard to focus, or before dinner
  • put poster session earlier
  • speakers need time limits enforced
  • room had no temperature control
  • internet access great
  • prefer cash bar
  • get the pre-evaluation information before the meeting, either during planning or when the attendees register

Graphical representation of detailed pre- and post-session evaluations are given below.

CPC 6 was sponsored by the CACHE Corportation and the Computing and Systems Technology (CAST) Division of AIChE.

Generous financial support of the meeting was provided by:

Evaluation Data Summary

Click on any link to download the graph.

Ranking: 1 = lowest, 5 = highest

Session pre-meeting evaluation post-meeting evaluation
Opening Session
Session Chair: Froisy
Speakers: Koppel, Kennedy
eval/pre-1.jpg N = 61
mean = 3.21
std = 1.11
eval/post-1.jpg N = 72
mean = 2.44
std = 1.20
Modeling and Identification
Session Chair: Lee
Speakers: Marquardt, Backx, Jorgensen, Lee
eval/pre-2.jpg N = 61
mean = 3.95
std = 0.83
eval/post-2.jpg N = 71
mean = 3.27
std = 0.91
Life Sciences
Session Chair: Doyle
Speakers: Schwaber, Arkin, Reuss
eval/pre-3.jpg N = 61
mean = 3.15
std = 1.21
eval/post-3.jpg N = 70
mean = 2.29
std = 1.01
Control Theory
Session Chair: Allgower
Speakers: Bertsekas, Willems, Sontag
eval/pre-4.jpg N = 59
mean = 3.59
std = 1.08
eval/post-4.jpg N = 73
mean = 2.66
std = 1.10
Hybrid Systems
Session Chair: Morari
Speakers: Kowalewski, Morari, Grossmann
eval/pre-5.jpg N = 61
mean = 3.67
std = 1.08
eval/post-5.jpg N = 72
mean = 3.44
std = 0.93
Controller Performance Monitoring and Maintenance
Session Chair: Kozub
Speakers/Authors: Desborough,
Miller, Shah, Patwardhan, Huang, Harris, Seppala
eval/pre-6.jpg N = 61
mean = 3.93
std = 0.98
eval/post-6.jpg N = 73
mean = 4.11
std = 0.94
Chemical Reactors/Separators
Session Chairs: Biegler, Bequette
Speakers/Authors: Pistikopoulos,
Sakizlis, Klatt, Duennebier,
Hanisch, Engell, Bonvin,
Srinivasan, Ruppen
eval/pre-7.jpg N = 61
mean = 3.30
std = 0.97
eval/post-7.jpg N = 67
mean = 2.96
std = 0.93
Modeling and Control of Complex Products
Session Chair: Ogunnaike
Speakers: Daoutidis, Henson,
Doyle, Soroush, Braatz, Hasebe
eval/pre-8.jpg N = 60
mean = 3.77
std = 0.91
eval/post-8.jpg N = 66
mean = 3.92
std = 0.90
Poster Session
Session Chair: Muske
eval/pre-9.jpg N = 58
mean = 3.60
std = 0.90
eval/post-9.jpg N = 64
mean = 3.58
std = 0.85
Vendor and Software Display
Session Chair: Qin
eval/pre-10.jpg N = 59
mean = 3.14
std = 1.09
eval/post-10.jpg N = 66
mean = 2.95
std = 0.67
Closing Session
Session Chair: Rawlings
Speakers/Authors: Downs, Young,
Bartusiak, Kulhavy, Lu, Samad
eval/pre-11.jpg N = 60
mean = 3.70
std = 1.03
eval/post-11.jpg N = 63
mean = 4.30
std = 0.73

Comparison of means for Pre- and Post-meeting evaluations

Ranking: 1 = lowest, 5 = highest

Pre-meeting evaluation Pre-meeting (red), Post-meeting (blue) Post-meeting evaluation 
 session  N   mean   std
    1     61  3.21  1.11
    2     61  3.95  0.83
    3     61  3.15  1.21
    4     59  3.59  1.08
    5     61  3.67  1.08
    6     61  3.93  0.98
    7     61  3.30  0.97
    8     60  3.77  0.91
    9     58  3.60  0.90
   10     59  3.14  1.09
   11     60  3.70  1.03
eval/pre-post-means.jpg 
 session  N   mean   std
    1     72  2.44  1.20
    2     71  3.27  0.91
    3     70  2.29  1.01
    4     73  2.66  1.10
    5     72  3.44  0.93
    6     73  4.11  0.94
    7     67  2.96  0.93
    8     66  3.92  0.90
    9     64  3.58  0.85
   10     66  2.95  0.67
   11     63  4.30  0.73

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[ Program Committee | Review Process | Paper Format | Proceedings ]
[ Photos | Meeting Evaluation and Summary ]

Questions about the CPC 6 conference should be addressed to cpc-6@bevo.che.wisc.edu

Copyright (C) 1998 James B. Rawlings. Verbatim copying and distribution is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.

University of Wisconsin
Department of Chemical Engineering
Madison WI 53706

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